Deities
appear to Native Americans ( 1996 )"A
spiritual renewal swept through Navajo country after deities reportedly
appeared in May to two respected tribal women," according to a Dallas
Morning News article. Thousands of Navajos have visited Rocky Ridge,
Arizona, in recent months to pray and leave offerings at the site where
Sarah Begay and her 96-year-old mother, Irene Yazzie, had the experience.

The article continues:
"According to tribal members who visited the site, the Navajo women
were inside their home when a thunderous noise came from nowhere and
drew them to the door to investigate. What they saw standing before
them, they said, were two ancient male Navajo spirits.

"The daughter [Ms
Begay] was kind of in shock, and she couldn't move," said Karen Abe,
a Navajo woman who visited the site and spoke with Ms Begay's family.
"The deities said the Navajos haven't been saying their prayers.'"

"She said the spirits
warned that the Navajo people are headed for perilous times if they
lose their traditional ways. Just as quickly as they appeared, the deities
were said to have vanished. Ms Begay said they left behind footprints
and sprinklings of corn pollen, which Navajos traditionally place on
the ground during special prayers. A shrine has been placed there, but
no traces of the footprints or powder remain, said Mrs Abe."

The article also
quotes a Native American pastor, the Reverend Abe Jackson, as saying:
"I believe that there are things that happen that not only encourage
us as native people, but continue the hope for us that our heritage
and culture are not being lost." (Source: Dallas Morning News, USA;
reported in Share International, September 1996 )

Israel - Red Heifer Seen as Sign (1997)The
birth of a rust-coloured calf in Israel is being hailed as a miraculous
sign of the coming of the Messiah - and labelled a potential threat to
Middle East peace. The red heifer, of a variety believed extinct for centuries,
was born to a black and white mother and a tan-coloured bull on a northern
Israeli farm run by a religious high school for troubled and orphaned
students. In ancient times the ashes of a red heifer, butchered in her
third year, were mixed with water and used to purify Jews before they
could approach Jerusalem's Holy Temple on Temple Mount. Not since the
destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in AD 70 has a red heifer
been born in Israel, scholars say.

Some Jews see the
heifer's birth as sign from God that the coming of the Messiah is near.
Many Muslims, and some less observant Jews, are concerned that extremists
might take the red heifer as a signal to destroy the Dome of the Rock
and Al Aqsa mosques, which now occupy Jerusalem's Temple Mount. That
would clear the way for thc construction of a third Jewish temple -
and be likely to provoke a war. "Traditionally, there have been only
nine such red cows in our history The first was prepared under the direction
of Moses and Aaron in the desert. Thc second was officiated over by
Ezra upon the Jews' return from the Babylonian exile. Seven more were
prepared during the period of the Second Temple. According to the 12th
century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, the tenth and final red heifer
will be prepared by the Messiah."

A dozen rabbis have
examincd thc calf and said she is the long-awaited ritual heifer, meeting,
so far, all the criteria described by the ancients. If the calf lives
unblemished for another 18 months, she can theoretically be put to use.
"It is written that it is the 10th heifer that the Messiah will discover
and here we have the 10th heifer. This is a clear sign that the Messiah
is near," said Rabbi Ido Weber Erlich of Jerusalem in an interview on
Israel Radio. ( Sources: Boston Globe; Newsweek Magazine; Washington
Jewish Week, USA )

Cambodia - Holy bull ( 1997 )Could
a bull's lick heal? In Cambodia the sick are flocking to the little town
of Bat Treng where two bulls are said to be healing people by this extraordinary
method. The blind are reported to have regained their sight after being
licked by the bulls; the lame are said to be able to walk again. The bulls
recently escaped the butcher's knife because their owner, a farmer, dreamt
that they were well-known figures in traditional legends. On their return
from the slaughter-house one of the animal-stars licked a lame man who
immediately got up and walked. According to reports that was the first
in a long series of healings. (Source: Trouw, the Netherlands)